The Beanie
by FindMeBroken
Summary: One simple object represents everything he wished and never could have. It represents her, in all of her glory. And even if by theft, this object belongs to him. Does she?
1. Emma Nelson

_Emma Nelson. Emma Nelson. Emma Nelson._

The name was everywhere and he couldn't escape it no matter where he turned.

Emma Nelson, head of _Environment 4 Us Enterprises_. Emma Nelson, actress. Emma Nelson, mother of twins. Emma Nelson, author. Emma Nelson, dead.

_Emma Nelson. Emma Nelson. Emma Nelson._

He had a box in his closet with her name written in black permanent marker: Emma Nelson.

In the box were things that kept him connected to her and what he once might have had. The box was divided down the center with a piece of cardboard. On one side were things from the earlier days when he saw her every day. The other side was things from now when he only ever saw her name.

_Emma Nelson._

The side with the things from now contained a brochure (for _Environment 4 Us Enterprises_he had picked it up in a restaurant on the other side of town), a fundraiser pin and t-shirt (from _Environment 4 Us Enterprises, _ he had called and ordered them anonymously and ended up paying six times as much as was asked which resulted in being acknowledged in one of their 'thanks yous' posted in the newspaper), a newspaper clipping (the thank you for the donation), three DVDs (all of which she co-starred in with either Manny Santos or Craig Manning), another newspaper clipping (the article about her newborn boys), a book (the one she had written about her high school and everything that happened), and finally one more newspaper clipping (her obituary). These things symbolized everything he had missed because of his mistakes.

The side of the box with the items from the past consisted of a beanie (the one his best friend wore when he had been dating her and then kept wearing it after they broke up), a ribbon (it symbolized 'no violence') a paint swatch (yellow), a feather (fake), a baggy filled with sand(from Wasaga), a used condom (his DNA on the inside, hers on the outside), and a photograph (of skid marks on the street). These things symbolized his mistakes.

He barely ever looked in the box but he had memorized its contents. If someone had asked him what was in it, he could list everything without having to think about it.

Even after her death, her name was still heard in the buzz of people's chattering every time he left his home.

He was haunted by her but he didn't mind, because even if it was all his own imagination, she was finally with him and him alone.

Her name was everywhere and he couldn't have escaped it if he wanted to.

_Emma Nelson._


	2. Jay Hogart

Jay Hogart hadn't opened the box in his closet in six months and he figured it was about time to feel the physical evidence of everything that ever mattered to him. He grabbed the box from the top shelf and set it on his coffee table. Taking a seat on the couch, he stared at the box. 

When he first started the box he would take one night every month to look through it and add anything else he felt necessary. After she had died he decided the last thing to go into the box would be what had informed him of her death and then he would only allow himself to feel the pain of her being gone every six months.

It was time again.

He opened the box and took out all the objects from the earlier days. He lined them up chronologically and as he stared at each object in turn, he remembered their significance and what they signified.

These objects symbolized his mistakes: every time he hurt her or caused her to hurt herself.


	3. The Beanie

He picked up the beanie. 

_Greenpeace and that kid from __Wasaga__ had been dating for awhile at that point. I could tell he was struggling in that relationship. She was all prissy and too perfect for her own good. He, on the other hand, was raw and troubled and fit in perfectly with my "clique". _

_I knew that it wasn't my place to interfere, but obviously I had to, if only to save the sanity of a fellow lost soul. _

_I had lured him away from __Cause Girl and seemed to spare him of a broken heart. I didn't find out until later how much pain I had caused him…how much pain I had caused both of them._

_He had worn a beanie when dating her and even after they broke up and he had gotten rid of everything else connected to that time spent with her he had kept the beanie. It was almost as if it was his only connection to his true love._

_I had envied what the beanie had obviously meant to him. I didn't know why at that time. I had a girlfriend, I had a best friend, __I__ had a track record as big as China was populated, and I had a reputation that kept me safe and in peace from the annoying students at __Degrassi_

_But why did I want that one thing that seemed so absurd? Why did I want the beanie that meant so much to him? Why did I want the beanie that symbolized her?_

_After a trip to __Wasaga__ with her, him, and his girlfriend, he had decided to stay and had forgotten his beanie in the car. I checked to make sure the two girls weren't looking before I swiped the beanie and shoved it in my jacket pocket._

_I had the beanie. Did that mean I had her too?_


	4. The Ribbon, Paint Swatch, Feather, Sand

He placed the beanie back in the box and then took the ribbon, paint swatch, feather, and bag of sand in his hands, as they were all related.

_She was protesting against Rick returning to school. She had made ribbons that represented 'no violence' to try to convince and make people aware of the danger he brought. _

_I supported her even though I probably never showed her. _

_It's ironic that she was taking a stand about the violence he could bring with him on his return to __Degrassi__, when the only real violence he had committed had been my fault._

_I had chosen the paint. I had bought the feathers. I had created the plan. I had forced Spinner to put it into action. I had convinced Spinner it was a good idea to tell Rick that it been Jimmy's plan all along._

_It was my fault that he went home and came back with a gun. It was my fault he pointed a gun at her face._

_It was my fault that this event in her life would corrupt her forever._

_It was my fault that Sean was shot in the process of saving her. It was my fault Sean decided to take that trip home. It was my fault Sean decided to stay. _

_It was my fault she fell apart._


	5. The Condom

He sniffled a little bit, but he would not cry. He cried when he had found out about her death and he had cried when he wrote _**EMMA NELSON**_ in big black letters on the box. But he would not cry now. He would not cry because he should be thankful that he even had these trinkets to remember her by. 

Shoving the ribbon, paint swatch, feather, and bag of sand back into the box he looked at the next item: the condom.

_It was my fault she came to the ravine._

_She entered the van with a look on her face that I took to mean that she wasn't thrilled with what she was about to do but knew she had to. I didn't understand then that she had to do it because it was the only solid development in her life._

_I didn't realize that the act we were taking part in was tainting her. If I had known, I would never have taken advantage of her. _

_I just thought that I finally had the chance to be with the girl who held the significance of a simple black beanie._

_The first time we were together, I used a condom. After she had finished, I rolled the condom off and waited for her to exit the van before I shoved it in my pocket and followed her out._

_The second time she came, we were in too much of a rush. Then the third time, we just forgot._

_But then she got sick._

_It was only then that I was brought to the attention of her instabilities and insecurities. And there I had been, thinking she was the strongest person I had ever known._

_She hated me for giving her the disease, and I didn't blame her._

_The day I found out I had gone home and pulled a cardboard box out of the garage. I found the black beanie shoved into the back of one of my drawers. Inside it there was a ribbon, a paint swatch, a feather, and a pile of lose grains of sand. I put the ribbon, paint swatch, and feather into the box and emptied the sand in to a Ziploc baggy. Then I put the bag and the beanie into the box. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the used condom. Placing it in the box, I had sighed, put the cover on, hid i__t under my bed, and went to a youth hostel to spend the night. _

_I couldn't be near that box. Not right then._


	6. The Picture

Placing the condom back into the box, he reached for the last object lying on the table: the picture. 

_Peter and Sean decided to race. They both wanted Emma and they decided to fight over her in the only way that they could both agree. _

_Peter knew Sean could kick his ass and Sean wasn't too good at spotting the newest trends. They agreed on a race. After all, Sean had just worked on Peter's car, so it was way faster than his father had intended for the high class sports car to go._

_The race had ended in disaster. Peter had cut Sean off, which caused Sean to hit an innocent runner. They both wanted to call the cops but I convinced Sean to leave the site, officially making the accident a hit-and-run. __When he was caught, though, he was thrown in jail._

_And the heartbreak I watched Emma go through…_

_Once again, it was my fault. I caused her pain._

_I hated myself._

_I saw how much I had hurt her and realized that __I had to do everything in my power to bring Sean back to her. I approached her and told her that she had to help him. One time, when we had both went to visit __him,__ I ended up swiping a photograph from his case file of the skid marks that his car had made on the street. I shoved it in my pocket when no one was looking._

_ She ended up raising enough money for bail and eventually they were together. _

_But I still had the beanie._


	7. The Brochure

He placed the photograph back into its side of the box and then reached out and took all the items from the other side of the box and ordered them chronologically on the table, as he had done with the other objects.

These objects symbolized everything he had missed because of his mistakes: each thing in her life that came out of things he had done that caused her pain.

First, he picked up the brochure.

_In high school, I tormented her for being such a Nature Freak, such a Cause Girl. But she was my Greenpeace. _

_I followed her entire life after she graduated from __Degrassi__. She ended up going to some huge college in the States that apparently was really good: Yael or Yale or something._

_After graduating from college she moved back to Toronto with her Mom and Simpson. After a__while of working at the Dot she moved out and got her own apartment, which (coincidentally?) happened to be in Sean'__s__building. Soon she started her own business, _Environment 4 Us Enterprises_, a company that stressed the importance of being environment friendly and raises money to donate to scientists to help pay for experiments on energy-saving strategies and products, or over all solutions to end Global Warming._

_One day, a few months after she opened, I went to the offices to see if I could get a good look at her. It had been about four or five years since I had seen her last, and I knew she must have been more gor__geous than ever. When I arrived I__ grabbed a brochure out of a holder in the front room before I entered the main office area. I pretended to be reading the brochure but let my eyes wander around before they landed on a beautiful blonde in a private office._

_I started to move closer when I realized she was on the phone. I got close enough so that I could hear her conversation._

_"He what?" she asked incredulously._

_There was a pause and she tried to pace but realized she was on a landline so she put it on speaker._

_"So, you're telling me that he has to go back to jail?"_

_The voice from the phone answered, "He did rob a gas station, Ms. Nelson. __As his parole officer, I'm saying that 30 days in jail is what he needs."_

_"And as his guardian, I'm saying what he needs is to be home with me," Emma insisted._

_"I'm sorry Ms. Nelson, but you and I both know that what's best for Sean is what I say is best. You are letting your adolescent emotions get in the way of your better judgment."_

_I'm pretty sure I gasped. __Sean going to jail? __Believable.__ Emma still being a part of Sean's life? __Believable.__ Emma being Sean's guardian? __Unbelievable._

_Emma spoke again in an eerily calm voice, "Mr. Taylor, I understand that you're trying your hardest to be good for Sean, and I appreciate it. I'm sure he does too. But I'm going to expect that you never, ever speak to me in that way again."_

_There was a mumbling and then the line went dead. Emma sighed and collapsed in her chair, resting her head in her hands. _

_I was about to turn away but at that moment she looked up and our eyes locked. I got a good look at her face and realized how tired she looked; how fragile._

_Could this possibly be the snowball effect? Could this possibly be my fault? I did turn Sean into the lying, cheating, stealing person he obviously still is today._

_She began to stand but I mouthed "I'm sorry" and promptly exited the building._


	8. The TShirt, Pin, Newspaper Clipping

He placed the brochure back in the box and picked up the t-shirt, pin, and first newspaper clipping.

_I later found out from the gossip pool (aka Spinner Mason) that Sean had been in an accident a few years earlier and his mental age regressed to his teenage years. His parents didn't want to deal with that for the rest of his __life,__ they thought the time when he was supposed to act that way was bad enough. _

_So Emma, being the miraculous person she is, because his legal guardian. I felt that I owed her something so I called her company and a voice I didn't recognize answered. _

_"Hello?" a perky feminine voice asked._

_"Um, hi.__ I would like to purchase one of the t-shirts that I read about as a fundraiser in your brochure."_

_"Ah, yes, of course Mr. …?"_

_"I'd rather be unidentified. Could I also get one of those pins?"_

_I didn't want Emma to know it was me who was donating but I had to do something for her._

_"Yes, sir.__ Where would you like this shipped to?"_

_I gave her the address to an abandoned house in the depths of the ravine. _

_"__Okay,__ and how will we know that the payment that arrives will be from you?" she asked._

_"The return address will be from a Mr. B. Park." I silently hoped Emma didn't know the real name of the ravine: Bennett Park._

_"Thank you, Mr. Anonymous. Have a nice day."_

_"You too."__ And I hung up._

_Later that day I put together a few bills, precisely six times as much money as had been asked. The next morning he put them in the mail and less than a week later __the t-shirt and pin arrived._

_I pulled out the familiar box from under my bed and put the shirt and pin in along with the brochure which had been propped up on my night stand._

_About a week later I was reading through the newspaper when I spotted a picture of Emma and a girl I didn't recognize. The article below it was about an anonymous donation that ended up saving their business. It read:_

**Thank You Mr. Anonymous**

Emma Nelson, owner and director of _Environment 4 Us Enterprises_, is proud to announce they will not be going out of business, thanks to an anonymous donation of over $400 that put this company up to the amount they needed to pay the government only two days before the deadline. Casey Messinger, receptionist at _Environment 4 Us Enterprises_, thanks "Mr. Anonymous" for the huge donation. She says, "He called and asked to purchase a t-shirt and pin for our fundraiser. When I asked him for his name he told he'd rather not say, but he said that the return address on his payment would be Mr. B. Park. And then the envelope comes in with six times as much money as he was supposed to pay."

When Ms. Nelson was questioned about her feelings towards this mysterious donator, all she had to say was, "Thank you Mr. Anonymous!"

_I sighed and cut out the article before putting it in the box as well. As I did so, I glanced at the other objects, the older ones. And I realized that in my destruction of Emma, she saved me. She did what she always did. She sacrificed herself for others._

_Thank you Ms. Nelson._


	9. The DVDs

He replaced the t-shirt, pin, and newspaper clipping. Then he took out the three DVDs. 

_"Did you hear about this new movie coming out?"__ a co-worker, Dan, __asked me one day._

_"Uh, no…" I replied, not really caring all that much._

_"Oh, well it's called _Prize Money_ and it's about this girl who two guys are in love with and the girl's best friend is in love with one of the guys and it's all depressing and sad and whatnot__, but__ chicks dig all the sentimental crap. Total first date material."_

_I laughed, "You and your 'first date material'. When has that stuff ever worked?"_

_"Hey, shut up, man. It'll work eventually. But seriously, let's go check out the movie tonight and we'll see if it's worth bringing girls to."_

_I sighed, "Fine, but I'm not sitting with you, just in case you start to cry."_

_"Ha ha, very funny, smartass," he answered sarcastically._

_I smiled, "I thought so."_

_Later that night I picked up Dan at his apartment and we headed to the nearest theater. When we bought the tickets I looked at the movie poster and something about it made me keep staring._

_There was a big picture of a brunette in the center and two guys on either side of her, one with short curly hair, the other with a buzz cut. The brunette and curly-haired guy both struck me as familiar but it was the smallest picture, all the way up at the __top, that__ caught my eye. She was blonde with deep brown eyes._

Emma Nelson.

_My breath caught in my throat and I almost walked out of the theater, but was stopped by Dan calling my name and waving me to the door that led to an hour and forty-five minutes of Channing Tatum, Craig Manning, Manny Santos, and Emma Nelson._

_I followed through on my promise of not sitting anywhere near Dan, and it was a good thing too, because he ended up hooking up with some chick who turned out to be a transvestite. _

_The movie wasn't half bad either. It turned out to be deeper than it had been originally described to me. There was something about how Emma's character ended up winning her guy (Channing Tatum) over in the end and Manny's character lost her guy (Craig) because he was in some car crash and put in a coma. Channing Tatum's character was convinced by Emma's character to use his prize money (hence the name) from some competition to pay for the life saving surgery that would bring Craig's character back._

_Not something I'd want to see again, but not something I regret seeing in the first place._

_But maybe that's only because Emma was in it. Her acting skills had really heightened since that high school performance of Dracula._

_Months later another movie came into theaters called _Touch Up_. It was meant to be a play on words, because it was a football movie about one of the players whose girlfriend died and during a game he was in limbo and had to decide whether or not to reach up to be with his one true love or to go back to living. Emma played the girlfriend and Craig played the football player. In the end, he chose her._

_About a year after that there was another movie that was said to be the best out of all the Emma Nelson movies. This one was called _Jay_. I almost choked when I heard the title the first time._

_Jay ended up being the name of Emma's character. And I assumed that the writers chose it, not her, so I shouldn't flatter myself. Jay was a nickname for the character __Jayna__, a teenage girl who was diagnosed with leukemia and her family didn't have enough money to pay for treatment. In comes Manny Santos, playing an upper class schoolmate of __Jayna's__, Holly Wilson. Holly and Jay had never gotten along but the movie is about Jay's new outlook on life because she would be dying __soon,__ and how she affects Holly's life. Holly begins to love Jay like a sister and convinces her parents to pay for her treatment but it's too late and Jay dies anyway, but because of her Holly stops being such a heartless bitch at school and totally changes who she is._

_It was all very touching._

_A few months after that, there was an announcement that Emma Nelson would be retiring from the movie business after only three movies. In honor of her award winning, $29,000,000 Blockbuster film, and just her legendry in general, special editions of all three of her movies were put out on the shelves in what was called the _EmmaPack: Movies to Rule all Movies_. It was corny and cheap, but she made a ton of money off of it._

_I bought the _EmmaPack_ the day after it was released. It was in its original packaging until the day she died when I finally allowed myself __to watch her movies again._

_For a long time I wondered why Emma decided to be in movies until one day it hit me._

_In all of her movies she played a sixteen-year-old with some type of problem in high school. She was sixteen when she had the lead in Dracula. She was sixteen when I screwed up her life._


	10. The Birth Announcement

Jay placed the DVDs back into the box and retrieved another newspaper clipping from the table before him.

_I don't even know why I was reading the newspaper that day. I never read the newspaper. I didn't even think I bought a newspaper. But when I opened my door that morning it hit me smack in the face…literally._

_So I read it._

_And there, on page six, was a picture of Emma Nelson and two newborn boys on both of her hips. The caption below read:_

Retired actress, Emma Nelson, has just given birth to two baby boys: Jeff (right) and Isaac. The father has yet to be identified.

_So Emma Nelson had a child out of wedlock? I couldn't believe it. But I guess it was possible. I mean, Emma Nelson hooked up with Jay __Hogart__ at the ravine! Emma Nelson was anorexic! Emma Nelson flashed a whole bunch of people! Emma Nelson had a child out of wedlock! It fit._


	11. The Book

He sighed as he put the newspaper clipping back in the box and picked up the thick hardcover book.

_I was walking through a bookstore one day with my __new girlfriend when she spotted a recent Best Seller on display in the window._

_"Look!" she cried, "Do you remember a few years ago all these movies came out with that amazing actress, Emma Nelson? And then just out of nowhere she quit?"_

_I gulped and nodded, wondering what this had anything to do with the book._

_"She wrote a book!"_

_Oh, that's what._

_I let this girl (what was her name? Isabel? __Izzy? __Iggy__ Pop? Something like that) drag me over to the stand where I realized the author was doing a book signing. I couldn't believe my luck. __(Sarcasm.)_

_New-girlfriend-person grabbed my hand and dragged me over to a table where she picked up a book and got in line for it to be signed. _

_Once we got to the front of the line she handed Emma the book and said, "Hi, I'm Isabel Walker and I'm a _huge_ fan. I loved your clothes in _Touch Up_. Did you get to keep them?"_

_Emma laughed and shook her head "no" before glancing in my direction. She began to look away and then did a double take and stared at me for a second before speaking, "Do I know you?"_

_Ouch. That hurt._

_Isabel laughed, "Jay? No, no one knows Jay!"_

_And this coming from my girlfriend!_

_I just shook my head and grabbed Isabel's hand, taking her out of the store. Later that night, after she had fallen asleep, I snuck into the living room where her purse and bag from the bookstore were. I took out Emma's book and read the front cover: _Jay, My Touched Prize

_I figured that had to do with the movies she was in. __Jay for _Jay_, Touched for _Touch Up_, Prize for _Prize Money._ But as I began to read the book, I realized that the title was just a cover up. Her book really was about a touched prize, but more in the way that it was tainted. And it was about a real Jay._

_She had written a book about me._

_It wasn't obvious. She didn't use my last name, or real names of some of the locations. For example, she called the ravine 'the cave' and The Dot '__Dotty's__ Diner'. She mentioned Sean, too. And Manny, Ellie, even Paige and Alex a little, too. Rick and the shooting were written in detail as well. But the only real name she used was mine. _

Did I really mean that much to her?

_But as I read the last paragraph, I realized that all I was to her was destruction:_

Jay was never really a prize, but more of a desired disease. He was addictive. He smelled of smoke and beer and there was always the odd odor of pine trees. Whenever my lips touched his, or my tongue touched somewhere else, I tasted all of it. And I wanted more of it, all the time. And for awhile, even, I wanted him to be mine. But he was never mine. He was always touched by others, always _with_ others. Jay would never be mine. But to me he was always one thing. After a long or stressful day, there was one escape, one release. My tainted reward. My touched prize. Jay.

_She had written a book about me. __About how I ruined her.__ About how I was her demise._

_I wanted to be flattered that she even took the time to write about me, but I knew that for once in her life, she was doing something for herself._


	12. The Obituary

He placed the book back into the box and picked up the last item from the table: the final newspaper clipping. 

_Her obituary was cold in my hand. _

_Isabel had walked into the kitchen late one morning, a solemn expression on her face. When I asked her what was wrong she told me her favorite actress of all time had died, and she passed me the newspaper. I read the article she pointed to:_

Emma Christine Nelson, business owner, actress, author, and mother, has passed away early this week. She walking home from work on Saturday morning and a teenage boy was throwing the Frisbee with his dog and the wind accidentally picked it up and sent it straight for her head, giving her a concussion. No one brought Ms. Nelson to the doctor soon enough and soon she slipped into a coma. By the time she was found, she was too far gone to be saved. Emma Nelson will be a legend in any business world and will be missed greatly by her sons and all those who loved her.

_A tear slipped down my cheek and I wiped it away before Isabel would notice. She sighed and then left the kitchen to go get ready for work. After she left I cut the obituary out of the newspaper and slipped it into the box in the closet and labeled it in big permanent marker __**EMMA NELSON**_

_I loved her. And I undoubtedly would miss her greatly._


	13. The Fire

Jay dropped the clipping into the box and closed the lid. He picked up the carton and exited his house. Upon arriving at the ravine, he started a fire. 

After staring at the flames for a few silent moments, thinking of everything the box contained, Jay brought himself back to the present. He picked the box up in his hands, said a brief good bye, kissed it, and threw it into the inferno.

He watched all that was left of Emma burn.

Tomorrow, Jason Hogart would be marrying Isabel Walker and he needed all reminders of his first and true love out of his radius of temptation.

All traces (except for one) were gone.

Now he could finally move on.

As Jay turned away from the fire and headed home, he pulled an old black beanie tight around his head.


End file.
